Monday, May 22, 2017

THE BAD NEWS.....is that police abuse is a
serious problem. It has a long history, and it seems to defy all attempts at
eradication.

The problem is national -- no police department
in the country is known to be completely free of misconduct -- but it must be
fought locally. The nation's 19,000 law enforcement agencies are essentially
independent. While some federal statutes that specify criminal penalties for
willful violations of civil rights and conspiracies to violate civil rights, the
United States Department of Justice has been insufficiently aggressive in
prosecuting cases of police abuse.

There are shortcomings, too, in federal law
itself, which does not permit "pattern and practice" lawsuits. The battle
against police abuse must, therefore, be fought primarily on the local level.

THE GOOD NEWS.....is that the situation is not
hopeless. Policing has seen much progress. Some reforms do work, and some types
of abuse have been reduced. Today, among both police officials and rank and file
officers it is widely recognized that police brutality hinders good law
enforcement.

To fight police abuse effectively, you must
have realistic expectations. You must not expect too much of any one remedy
because no single remedy will cure the problem. A "mix" of reforms is required.
And even after citizen action has won reforms, your community must keep the
pressure on through monitoring and oversight to ensure that the reforms are
actually implemented.

Nonetheless, even one person, or a small group
of persistent people, can make a big difference. Sometimes outmoded and abusive
police practices prevail largely because no one has ever questioned them. In
such cases, the simple act of spotlighting a problem can have a powerful effect
that leads to reform. Just by raising questions, one person or a few people --
who need not be experts -- can open up some corner of the all-too-secretive and
insular world of policing to public scrutiny. Depending on what is revealed,
their inquiries can snowball into a full blown examination by the media, the
public and politicians.

II. GETTING STARTED: IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM:

You've got to address specific problems. The
first step, then, is to identify exactly what the police problems are in your
city. What's wrong with your police department is not necessarily the same as
what's wrong in another city. Police departments are different in size, quality
of management, local traditions and the severity of problems. Some departments
are gravely corrupt; others are relatively "clean" but have poor relations with
community residents. Also, a city's political environment, which affects both
how the police operate and the possibilities for achieving reform, is different
in every city. For example, it is often easier to reform police procedures in
cities that have a tradition of "good government," or in cities where minorities
are well organized politically.

The range of police problems includes:

Excessive use of deadly force.

Excessive use of physical force.

Discriminatory patterns of arrest.

Patterns of harassment of such "undesirables" as
the homeless, youth, minorities and gays, including aggressive and
discriminatory use of the "stop-and-frisk" and overly harsh enforcement of petty
offenses.

Discriminatory non-enforcement of the law, such
as the failure to respond quickly to calls in low-income areas, and half-hearted
investigations of domestic violence, rape or hate crimes.

Spying on political activists.

Employment discrimination -- in hiring,
promotion and assignments, and internal harassment of minority, women and gay or
lesbian police personnel.

The "code of silence" and retaliation against
officers who report abuse and/or support reforms.

Overreaction to "gang" problems, which is
driven by the assumption that most or all associational activity is
gang-related. This includes illegal mass stops and arrests, and demanding photo
IDs from young men based on their race and dress instead of their criminal
conduct.

The "war on drugs," with its overboard searches
and other tactics that endanger innocent bystanders. This "war" wastes scarce
resources on unproductive "buy and bust" operations to the neglect of more
promising community-based approaches.

Lack of accountability, such as the failure to
discipline or prosecute abusive officers, and the failure to deter abuse by
denying promotions and/or particular assignments because of prior abusive
behavior.

Crowd control tactics that infringe on free
expression rights and lead to unnecessary use of physical force.

III. GATHER THE FACTS

The first thing to bear in mind about the
"homework" community residents have to do in order to build a strong case for
reform is that obtaining the most relevant information on the activities of your
police department can be a tough task. In answer to critics, police chiefs often
cite various official data to support their claim that they are really doing a
great job. "Look at the crime rate," they say, "it's lower than in other
cities." Or: "My department's arrest rate is much higher than elsewhere." The
catch is that these data, though readily available to citizens, are deeply
flawed, while the most telltale information is not always easy to get.

FORGET The "Crime Rate." The "crime rate"
figures cited by government officials are based on the FBI's Uniform Crime
Reports (UCR) system, which has several serious flaws. To name only a few:
First, the UCR only measures reported crime.

Second, since the system is not independently
audited there are no meaningful controls over how police departments use their
crime data. Police officers can and do "unfounded" crimes, meaning they decide
that no crime occurred. They also "downgrade" crimes -- for example, by
officially classifying a rape as an assault. Third, reports can get "lost,"
either deliberately or inadvertently.

There are many other technical problems that
make the UCR a dubious measure of the extent of crime problems. The National
Crime Survey (NCS), published by another part of the U.S. Justice Department,
provides a far more accurate estimate of the national crime rate and of
long-term trends in crime. But it is a national-level estimate and does not
provide data on individual cities. So the NCS isn't much help on the local
level.

FORGET The "Clearance Rate." A police
department's official data on its "clearance rate," which refers to the
percentage of crimes solved, do not accurately reflect that department's
performance. The fact that one department "clears" 40 percent of all robberies,
compared with 25 percent by another department, doesn't necessarily mean it is
more effective. There are too many ways to manipulate the data, either by
claiming a larger number of crimes "cleared" (inflating the numerator), or by
artificially lowering the number of reported crimes (lowering the denominator).

FORGET The arrest rate. Police officers have
broad discretion in making and recording arrests. The Police Foundation (in
Washington, D.C.), which conducts research on policing issues, has found great
variations among police departments in their recording of arrests. In many
departments, police officers take people into custody, hold them at the station,
question and then release them without filling out an arrest report. For all
practical purposes, these people were "arrested," but their arrests don't show
up in the official data. Other departments record such arrests. Thus, the
department that reports a lower number of arrests may actually be taking more
people into custody than the department that reports more arrests.

FORGET The citizen complaint rate. Official
data on the complaints filed by citizens regarding police conduct are important
but present a number of problems. Many departments do not release any
information on this subject. Some publish a smattering of information on
complaints and the percentage of complaints sustained by the department. In more
and more cities, the civilian review agency publishes this data.

Data on citizen complaints are difficult to
interpret. Some examples: In 1990, it was widely reported that San Francisco,
with less than 2,000 police officers, had more citizen complaints than Los
Angeles, which has more than 8,000 officers. What that may mean, however, is
that Los Angeles residents are afraid to file reports or don't believe it would
do any good. San Francisco has a relatively independent civilian review process,
which may encourage the filing of more complaints. Also in 1990, New York City
reported a decline from previous years in the number of citizen complaints
filed. But many analysts believe that simply reflected New Yorkers' widespread
disillusionment with their civilian review board. Citizen complaints filed in
Omaha, Nebraska doubled after the mayor allowed people to file their complaints
at City Hall, as well as the police department.

Another problem is that in some police
departments with internal affairs systems, officers often try to dissuade people
from filing formal complaints that will later become part of an officer's file.
And the number of complaints counted is also affected by whether or not the
internal affairs system accepts anonymous complaints and complaints by phone or
mail, or requires in-person, sworn statements.

Thus, the official "complaint rate" (complaints
per 1,000 citizens), rather than being a reliable measure of police performance,
more than likely reflects the administrative customs of a particular police
department.

WHAT YOU REALLY NEED TO KNOW, AND WHY

Police shootings. You need to know about police
firearms discharges, which refer to the number of times a police weapon has been
fired. This information is more complete than statistics on the number of
persons shot and wounded or killed. (However, information on the race of persons
shot and wounded or killed is important.) Particularly important is information
on repeat shooters, which can tell you whether some officers fire their weapons
at a suspiciously high rate.

With this information, you can evaluate the use
of deadly force in your department. You can also evaluate the long-term trends
in shootings. Are shootings increasing or decreasing? Has there been a recent
upsurge? How does the department compare with other departments -- are officers
shooting at a significantly higher rate in your department than elsewhere?

SIDEBAR: WHO SHOOTS?

*Do some officers shoot more often than others?
*Do white officers shoot more often that black officers? *Do young officers
shoot more often than veteran officers?

The most detailed analysis of police shootings
was produced by James Fyfe, a former police officer who is now a criminologist
and expert on police practices. He concluded that the single most important
factor determining patterns of shooting is place of assignment. Fyfe's findings
showed that: Black and white officers assigned to similar precincts fired their
weapons at essentially the same rate; since new officers are assigned to less
desirable, high crime precincts based on the seniority system, younger officers
shoot more often than older officers; and since a disproportionate number of
black officers are young due to recent affirmative action programs, black
officers shoot more often than white officers -- but as a function of
assignment, not race.

Fyfe found significant differences in shooting
patterns between police departments. The overall shooting rate in some
departments was significantly higher than in others, a disparity that he
attributed to differences in department policy.

B. Use of physical force. You need to know how
frequently, day to day, police officers in your city use physical force in the
course of their encounters with citizens. Do officers try to refrain from using
such force against citizens, or do they quickly and casually resort to force?

In its report on the Los Angeles police
department in the aftermath of the March 1991 beating of Rodney King, the
Christopher Commission confirmed a long held suspicion: a small number of
officers are involved in an extraordinarily high percentage of use of force
incidents. Ten percent of the officers accounted for 33.2% of all use of force
incidents. The Commission was able to identify 44 such officers who were not
disciplined despite the fact that they were the subjects of numerous citizen
complaints.

In 1981, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found
a similar pattern in Houston and recommended, as a remedy, that police
departments establish "early warning systems" to identify officers with high
rates of citizen complaints.

Patterns in the use of physical force reveal a
lot about the "culture" of a particular police department. Clearly, a department
whose officers repeatedly engage in physically coercive conduct needs reform.
Police officials often deny that their personnel are prone to using force
inappropriately, so if your community believes it has a problem in this area
citizens must be able to support their claims with existing data, or data they
have gathered themselves.

SIDEBAR: RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN POLICE
SHOOTINGS

These data indicate a clear pattern of racial
discrimination. The disparity between whites and blacks shot and killed is
extreme in the category of persons "unarmed and not assaultive." These are
classic "fleeing felon" situations in which, prior to 1985, Memphis Police
Department policy and the common law of many states permitted officers to use
deadly force. In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it is unconstitutional
for a police officer to shoot a suspected felon in flight who does not pose an
immediate danger to the officer or public. The case -- Tennessee v. Garner --
involved Edward Garner, a 15 year-old black youth who, though unarmed, was shot
and killed while trying to flee the scene of a suspected burglary.

POLICE SHOOTINGS IN MEMPHIS 1969-1974

Person Shot and Killed Number Shot and Killed
White Black

Armed and Assaultive 5
7

Unarmed and Assaultive 2
6

Unarmed and Not Assaultive 1
13

In examining official policies, you need to
evaluate them in comparison to recommended standards.

D. Lawsuits. You need to know how many lawsuits
citizens have filed against your local police department. You want to know what
the charges were, the number of officers involved, whether certain officers are
named repeatedly in suits, what was the outcome and, in the case of successful
suits, how much did the city pay in damages.

The number of lawsuits filed against a police
department can be very revealing. For example, the Los Angeles Times reported
that the city paid $64 million (of citizens' tax money!) in damages for abuses
by the Los Angeles Police Department and county sheriff's office in just three
years -- 1989-1991. In 1990 alone, New York City paid victims of police
misconduct a record high of more than $13 million. This kind of information can
be used to mobilize middle-class taxpayers and "good-government" activists, who
can then be brought into a community coalition against police abuse.

E. Minority employment. You need to know how
many African Americans, panics, Asians, other minorities and women are employed
by your police department and their distribution throughout the department's
ranks.

This information is useful in assessing, again,
the "culture" of your local police department -- is it internally diverse, fair
and equitable? It also suggests how much value the department places on the
"human relations" aspects of its work, and how responsive it is to community
concerns.

WHERE TO GET THE INFORMATION, AND HOW

Police business is generally shrouded in
secrecy, which conceals outdated policies and departmental inertia, encourages
cover-ups and, of course, breeds public suspicion. But remember: Police
departments are an arm of government, and *the government's business is your
business*. Police policies, procedures, memoranda, records, reports, tape
recordings, etc. should not be withheld from public view unless their release
would threaten on-going investigations, endanger officers or others, or invade
someone's personal privacy.

Demanding information about police practices is
an important part of the struggle to establish police accountability. Indeed, a
campaign focused solely on getting information from the police can serve as a
vehicle for organizing a community to tackle police abuse. Regarding all of the
following categories, one of the tactics your community could employ is to
interest a local investigative journalist in seeking information from the police
for a series of articles. Once in hand, the information is a tool for holding
the police accountable for their actions.

Police Shootings. Virtually every big city
police department has this information on hand, since officers are required to
file a report after every firearms discharge. Departments are supposed to
publish a summary of weapons discharges every year, but they don't usually
release the information voluntarily. Strong civilian review boards in a few
cities now publish the information. As for repeat shooters, this information
exists in police reports but police departments vigorously resist identifying
repeat shooters. There are several ways to proceed:

(2) Alternatively, since it isn't essential that
officers be identified by name, demand that they be identified simply by a code
number, which can focus public attention on the problem of excessive shooters.

(3) Visit your local civilian review agency, if
one exists. These agencies often have the authority to collect and release a
range of information about local police conduct.

SIDEBAR: ON DRUGS, GANGS AND POLICE OFFICER
SAFETY

Police work remains dangerous, and many police
officers contend that they need greater freedom to use deadly force today
because of the increase in heavily armed drug gangs.

But in fact, police work is much less dangerous
than it used to be. The number of officers killed in the line of duty is half of
what it was nearly 20 years ago. According to the FBI, the number of officers
killed dropped from 134 in 1973 to 67 in 1990. That reduced death rate is even
more dramatic considering the increase in the number of police officers on duty
in the field.

Police officers have not been the victims of
"drive-by" gang shootings. Innocent by-standers and rival gang members have been
the victims.

The police do not need more firepower.

B. Physical Force. There are three potential
sources of data on police use of physical force.

(1) Data developed by community residents.
Community residents can make a significant contribution to documenting physical
force abuses and, in the process, organize. They can bear witness to, and
record, abuse incidents, take information from others who have witnessed
incidents, refute police department arguments that there is no problem and help
document the inadequacies of the police department's official complaint review
process.

The San Diego chapter of the ACLU's Southern
California affiliate set up "police hotline," which is listed in the Yellow
Pages, to receive complaints about the police. The chapter's first report on the
hotline, issued in August 1990, offers some useful information about complaint
patterns. The Police Watch in Los Angeles compiles similar data. To receive a
copy of the San Diego ACLU report, write to the ACLU/San Diego, 1202 Kettner
Boulevard, Suite 6200, San Diego, CA 92101, or call (619) 232-2121. Police Watch
can be contacted at 611 South Catalina, Suite 409, Los Angeles, CA 90005;
(213)387-3325.

(2) Formal complaints filed by citizens. Most
police departments do not make this information public. Some publish summary
data in their annual report, so consult that document. In a number of cities,
civilian review agencies publish it, so check with that agency in your city. The
annual reports of the New York City Citizen Complaint Review Board (CCRB) and
San Francisco's Office of Citizen Complaints (OCC) provide fairly detailed
summaries.

(3) Internal police reports. An increasing
number of police departments require officers to fill out reports after any use
of physical force. This is a larger set of data than the citizen complaints
would provide, since many citizens don't file complaints even when they have
cause to do so. Ask to see these reports.

C. Official Policies. Your police department has
a Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) manual (it may have another title) that
contains the official policies of the department. The SOP manual is a public
document and should be readily available. Some departments place current copies
in local libraries. Others treat it as an internal document not available to the
public -- which is unacceptable. Demand to see the manual, if your department
withholds it. As a last resort, you can file suit under your state's open
records law to obtain the SOP manual.

D. Lawsuits. Lawsuits brought against police
departments are matters of public record. Records of suits brought in state
courts reside at your local state courthouse; of suits brought in federal
district court, at your local federal courthouse. The Lexis computer database is
a source of published opinions in civilian suits brought against the police.
However, collecting information from any of these sources is a very laborious
task. Better to contact your local ACLU affiliate and/or other relevant public
interest groups, which may have done most of the work for you. In the back of
this manual, find the name and address of your local ACLU and other
organizations.

E. Minority Employment. Official data on this
issue are generally reliable and available from your local police department. If
the police stonewall, you can get the information from the city's personnel
division. The point is to evaluate the police department's minority employment
record relative to local conditions.

Using current data, compare the percentage of a
particular group of people in the local population with that group's
representation on the police force. If, for example, Hispanic Americans are 30
percent of the population but only 15 percent of the sworn officers, the your
police department is only half way toward achieving an ideal level of diversity.

IV. CONTROLLING THE POLICE: COMMUNITY GOALS

GOAL #1: A CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARD

Civilian review of police activity was first
proposed in the 1950s because of widespread dissatisfaction with the internal
disciplinary procedures of police departments. Many citizens didn't believe that
police officials took their complaints seriously. They suspected officials of
investigating allegations of abuse superficially at best, and of covering up
misconduct. The theory underlying the concept of civilian review is that
civilian investigations of citizen complaints are more independent because they
are conducted by people who are not sworn officers.

At first, civilian review was a dream few
thought would ever be fulfilled. But slow, steady progress has been made,
indicating that it's an idea whose time has come. By the end of 1991, more than
60 percent of the nation's 50 largest cities had civilian review systems, half
of which were established between 1986 and 1991.

Civilian review advocates in every city have had
to overcome substantial resistance from local police departments. One veteran of
the struggle for civilian review has chronicled the stages of police opposition
as follows:

> the "over our dead bodies" stage, during
which police will not accept any type of civilian oversight under any
circumstances;

> the "magical conversion" stage, when it
becomes politically inevitable that civilian review will be adopted. At this
point, former police opponents suddenly become civilian review experts and
propose the weakest possible models; Strong community advocacy is necessary to
overcome resistance at every stage, even after civilian review is established.

WHAT IS CIVILIAN REVIEW?

Confusion reigns about civilian review systems
because they vary tremendously.

Some are more "civilian" than others. Some are
not boards but municipal agencies headed by an executive director (who has been
appointed by, and is accountable to, the mayor).

The three basic types of civilian review systems
are:

(1) Type I. Persons who are not sworn officers
conduct the initial fact-finding. They submit an investigative report to a
non-officer or board of non-officers, requesting a recommendation of discipline
or leniency. This process is the most independent and most "civilian."

(2) Type II. Sworn officers conduct the initial
fact-finding. They submit an investigative report to a non-officer or board of
non-officers for a recommendation.

(3) Type III. Sworn officers conduct the initial
fact-finding and make a recommendation to the police chief. If the aggrieved
citizen is not satisfied with the chief's action on the complaint, he or she may
appeal to aboard that includes non-officers. Obviously, this process is the
least independent.

Although the above are the most common, other
types of civilian review systems also exist.

SIDEBAR: TEN PRINCIPLES FOR AN EFFECTIVE
CIVILIAN REVIEW BOARD

1 Independence. The power to conduct hearings,
subpoena witnesses and report findings and recommendations to the public.

8 Statistical Analysis. Public statistical
reports can detail trends in allegations, and early warning systems can identify
officers who are subjects of unusually numerous complaints.

9 Separate Offices. Should be housed away from
police headquarters to maintain independence and credibility with public.

10 Disciplinary Role. Board findings should be
considered in determining appropriate disciplinary action.

WHY IS CIVILIAN REVIEW IMPORTANT?

Civilian review establishes the principle of
police accountability. Strong evidence exists to show that a complaint review
system encourages citizens to act on their grievances. Even a weak civilian
review process is far better than none at all.

A civilian review agency can be an important
source of information about police misconduct. A civilian agency is more likely
to compile and publish data on patterns of misconduct, especially on officers
with chronic problems, than is a police internal affairs agency.

Civilian review can alert police administrators
to the steps they must take to curb abuse in their departments. Many
well-intentioned police officials have failed to act decisively against police
brutality because internal investigations didn't provide them with the facts.

The existence of a civilian review agency, a
reform in itself, can help ensure that other needed reforms are implemented. A
police department can formulate model policies aimed at deterring and punishing
misconduct, but those policies will be meaningless unless a system is in place
to guarantee that the policies are aggressively enforced.

Civilian review works, if only because it's at
least a vast improvement over the police policing themselves. Nearly all
existing civilian review systems reduce public reluctance to file complaints;
reduce procedural barriers to filing complaints; enhance the likelihood that
statistical reporting on complaints will be more complete; enhance the
likelihood of an independent review of abuse allegations; foster confidence in
complainants that they will get their "day in court" through the hearing
process; increase scrutiny of police policies that lead to citizen complaints,
and increase opportunities for other reform efforts.

Your community's campaign should seek the
strongest possible civilian review system, one that is fully independent and
designed for easy access. But if all you can get adopted is a weak system, take
it with the understanding that once it's created you can press for changes to
make it more independent and
effective.

GOAL #2: CONTROL OF
POLICE SHOOTINGS

Police misconduct in the use of deadly force is
an area in which considerable progress has been made. Although the rate of
deadly force abuse is still intolerably high, national data reveal reductions,
by as much as 35-to-40 percent in our 50 largest cities, in the number of
persons shot and killed by the police since the mid-1970s. This has been
accompanied by a significant reduction in the racial disparities among persons
shot and killed: since the 1970s, from about six minority persons to one white
person, down to three minority persons to one white.

This progress serves as a model for controlling
other forms of police behavior.

How was it achieved? In the mid-1970s, police departments began to
develop restrictive internal policies on the use of deadly force. These embodied
the "defense of life" standard, which allows the use of deadly force only when
the life of an officer or some other person is in danger. In 1985, the Supreme
Court finally upheld this standard in the case of Tennessee v. Garner (see
sidebar, "Racial Discrimination in Police Shootings"). However, the majority of
policies adopted by police departments go beyond the courts Garner decision,
prohibiting warning shots, shots to wound, and other reckless actions. Most
important, these policies require officers to file written reports after each
firearms discharge, and require that those reports be automatically reviewed by
higher-ranking officers.

To meet goal #2, your community must:

(1) Ensure that the police department has a
highly restrictive deadly force policy. Most big city departments do. But the
national trend data on shootings suggest that medium-sized and small departments
have not caught up with the big cities, so much remains to be done there. Much
remains to be done as well in county sheriff and state police agencies, which
have not been subject to the same scrutiny as big city police departments.

(2) Ensure enforcement of the deadly force
policy through community monitoring.

To be accountable, the police department and/or
the local civilian review agency should publish summary data on shooting
incidents.

Citizens should also be able to find out whether
the department disciplines officers who violate its policy, and whether certain
officers are repeatedly involved in questionable incidents.

SIDEBAR: THE HOUSTON POLICE DEPARTMENT'S DEADLY
FORCE POLICY (1987)

POLICY: The Houston Police Department places its
highest value on the life and safety of its officers and the public. The
department's policies, rules and procedures are designed to ensure that this
value guides police officers' use of firearms.

RULES: The policy stated above is the basis of
the following set of rules that have been designed to guide officers in all
cases involving the use of firearms:

*The citizens of Houston have vested in their
police officers the power to carry and use firearms in the exercise of their
service to society. This power is based on trust and, therefore, must be
balanced by a system of accountability.

The serious consequences of the use of firearms
by police officers necessitate the specification of limits for officers'
discretion; there is often no appeal from an officer's decision to use a
firearm. Therefore, it is imperative that every effort be made to ensure that
such use is not only legally warranted but also rational and humane.

*The basic responsibility of police officers to
protect life also requires that they exhaust all other reasonable means for
apprehension and control before resorting to the use of firearms. Police
officers are equipped with firearms as a means of last resort to protect
themselves and others from the immediate threat of death or serious bodily
injury.

*Even though all officers must be prepared to
use their firearms when necessary, the utmost restraint must be exercised in
their use. Consequently, no officer will be disciplined for discharging a
firearm in self-defense or in defense of another when faced with a situation
that immediately threatens life or serious bodily injury. Just as important, no
officer will be disciplined for not discharging a firearm if that discharge
might threaten the life or safety of an innocent person, or if the discharge is
not clearly warranted by the policy and rules of the department.

Preventing Police
Abuse

Page 2

*Above all, this department values the safety
of its employees and the public.

Likewise it believes that police officers
should use firearms with a high degree of restraint. Officers' use of firearms,
therefore, shall never be considered routine and is permissible only in defense
of life and then only after all alternative means have been exhausted.
RULE 1: Police officers shall not discharge
their firearms except to protect themselves or another person from imminent
death or serious bodily injury.
RULE 2: Police officers shall discharge their
firearms only when doing so will not endanger innocent persons.
RULE 3: Police officers shall not discharge
their firearms to threaten or subdue persons whose actions are destructive to
property or injurious to themselves but which do not represent an imminent
threat of death or serious bodily injury to the officer or others.
RULE 4: Police officers shall not discharge
their firearms to subdue an escaping suspect who presents no imminent threat of
death or serious bodily injury.
RULE 5: Police officers shall not discharge
their weapons at a moving vehicle unless it is absolutely necessary to do so to
protect against an imminent threat to the life of the officer or others.
RULE 6: Police officers when confronting an
oncoming vehicle shall attempt to move out of the path, if possible, rather than
discharge their firearms at the oncoming vehicle.
RULE 7: Police officers shall not intentionally
place themselves in the path of an oncoming vehicle and attempt to disable the
vehicle by discharging their firearms.
RULE 8: Police officers shall not discharge
their firearms at a fleeing vehicle or its driver.
RULE 9: Police officers shall not fire warning
shots. RULE 10: Police officers shall not draw or
display their firearms unless there is a threat or probably cause to believe
there is a threat to life, or for inspection.

GOAL #3: REDUCE POLICE BRUTALITY

Your community's principal aim here should be
to get the police department to adopt and enforce a written policy governing the
use of physical force. This policy should have two parts:
(1)
It should explicitly restrict physical force to the narrowest possible range of
specific situations. For example, a policy on the use of batons should forbid
police officers from striking citizens in "non-target" areas, such as the head
and spine, where permanent injuries can result. Mace should be used defensively,
not offensively. Since electronic stun guns (Novas and Taser) have great
potential for abuse because they don't leave scars or bruises, their use should
be strictly controlled, supervised and reviewed.
(2)
It should require that a police officer file a written report after any use of
physical force, and that report should be automatically reviewed by high ranking
officers.
Your community's second objective should be to get the police department to
establish an early warning system to identify officers who are involved in an
inordinate number of incidents that include the inappropriate use of physical
force. The incidents should then be investigated and, if verified, the officers
involved should be charged, disciplined, transferred, re-trained or offered
counseling -- depending on the severity of their misconduct. The Christopher
Commission's report on the Rodney King beating ascertained that the Los Angeles
police leadership typically looked the other way when officers were involved in
questionable incidents. This tolerance of brutality by the top brass helped
create an atmosphere conducive to police abuses.
GOAL #4: END POLICE SPYING
Police spying, or intelligence gathering, on
constitutionally protected political, religious and private sexual behavior is
an historic problem. And it's particularly difficult to deal with because
spying, by definition, is a covert activity. The victim doesn't know it's
happening, and it's not witnessed by others.
During the 1970s, the ACLU and other public interest organizations brought
lawsuits against unconstitutional police surveillance in several cities around
the country, including New York City, Chicago, Memphis and Los Angeles. These
suits resulted in the imposition of stricter limits on intelligence gathering by
the police.
In Seattle in 1976, it came to light that
local police were spying on organizations of black construction workers, Native
Americans, advocates for low-income housing and other community activists whose
conduct was perfectly lawful. In response to the revelations, the ACLU, along
with the American Friends Service Committee and the National Lawyers Guild,
formed the Coalition on Government Spying. After several years of hard work and
lobbying, the coalition succeeded in bringing about passage of a comprehensive
municipal law -- the first of its kind in the country -- that governs all police
investigations and restricts the collection of political, religious and sexual
information.
This law, called the Seattle Police
Intelligence Ordinance, is an important breakthrough and a model for other
efforts. It contains three elements that represent basic changes in police
intelligence operations:
(1)
"Restricted" information (that is, religious, political or sexual information)
can be collected only if a person is reasonably suspected of having committed a
crime, and the information must be relevant to that crime; (2) An independent
civilian "auditor", appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the city council,
must review all police authorizations to collect restricted information and have
access to all other police files. If the auditor finds that the police have
violated the law, he or she must so notify the individuals who are the subjects
of the unlawful investigations;
(3)
Any individual subjected to unlawful surveillance can bring a civil action in
court to stop the surveillance, and to collect damages from the city.
GOAL #5: GENERAL OVERSIGHT OF POLICE POLICY
Police policies should be subject to public
review and debate instead of being viewed as the sole province of police
insiders. Open policy-making not only allows police officials to benefit from
community input, but it also provides an opportunity for police officials to
explain to the public why certain tactics or procedures may be necessary. This
kind of communication between the police and the community can help anticipate
problems and avert crises before they occur.
The Police Review Commission (a civilian review
body) of Berkeley, California holds regular, bi-monthly meetings that are open
to the public. At these meetings, representatives of community organizations can
voice criticisms, make proposals and introduce resolutions to review or reform
specific police policies.
The Police Practices Project of the ACLU of
Northern California successfully pressured the San Francisco Police Department
to adopt enlightened policies in regard to the treatment of homeless people; the
use of pain holds and batons; the deployment of plainclothes officers at
protests and demonstrations; intelligence gathering; the selection of field
training officers, and AIDS/HIV education for police officers. The Project has
also prevented the adoption of bad policies, including an anti-loitering rule
and a policy that would have made demonstrators financially liable for police
costs.
In
Tucson, Arizona, a Citizens' Police Advisory Committee was made part of the
city's municipal code in July 1990. The Committee, which is composed of both
civilian and police representatives, has the authority to initiate
investigations of controversial incidents or questionable policies, along with
other oversight functions.
SIDEBAR: CITIZEN-POLICE ADVISORY COMMITTEE
TUCSON, ARIZONA (Created by
the Tucson Code, Sec. 10A-86)
FUNCTIONS:
(a)
Consult with the governing body from time to time as may be required by the
Mayor and [City] Council.
(b)
Assist the police in achieving a greater understanding of the nature and causes
of complex community problems in the area of human relations, with special
emphasis on the advancement and improvement of relations between police and
community minority groups.
(c)
Study, examine and recommend methods, approaches and techniques to encourage and
develop an active citizen-police partnership in the prevention of crime.
(d)
Promote cooperative citizen-police programs and approaches to the solutions of
community crime problems, emphasizing the principal that the administration of
justice is a responsibility which requires total community involvement.
(e)
Recommend procedures, programs and/or legislation to enhance cooperation among
citizens of the community and police.
(f)
Strive to strengthen and ensure throughout the community the application of the
principle of equal protection under the law for all persons.
(g)
Consult and cooperate with federal, state, city and other public agencies,
commissions and committees on matters within the committee's charge.
(h)
The committee may ask for and shall receive from the Police Department, a review
of action taken by the Department in incidents which create community concern or
controversy.
(i)
The committee shall have the authority, should it so desire, to use a specific
incident as a vehicle for the examination of police policies, procedures and
priorities.
(j)
At the discretion and express direction of the Mayor and Council, assume and
undertake such other tasks or duties as will facilitate the accomplishment of
these goals and
objectives......... GOAL #6: IMPROVED TRAINING
Over the years, citizens' groups in some
communities demanded more education and training for police officers as part of
their efforts to solve the problem of police abuse. But at this juncture, the
education issue is somewhat moot because the educational levels of American
police officers have risen dramatically in recent years. By 1986, 22.6 percent
of all officers had four or more years of college. About 65 percent had at least
some college experience. The levels of education are highest among new recruits,
who, in many departments have about two years of college. Moreover, no evidence
exists to show that college educated police officers perform better, or are more
respectful of citizen's rights, than less educated officers. In an abuse-prone
department, all officers are likely to engage in misconduct, regardless of
education levels.
The training of police personnel has also
improved significantly in recent years. The average length of police academy
programs has more than doubled, from about 300 to over 600 hours; in some
cities, 900 or even 1200 hours are the rule. As the time devoted to training has
increased, the academies have added a number of important subjects to their
curricula: race relations, domestic violence, handling the mentally ill, and so
on.
Unquestionably, a rigorously trained,
professional police force is a desirable goal that should be pursued depending
on local conditions. If citizens in your community feel that this is an
important issue, here's what you should aim for:
A
first rate police academy curriculum. The curriculum should be near the high end
of the current scale -- 800 hours or more. It should include a mix of classroom
and supervised field training.
It
should include training in the techniques of de-escalating violence. In addition
to being given weapons and taught how to use them, police recruits should also
learn special skills -- especially communications skills -- to help them defuse
and avert situations that might lead to the necessary use of force.
It
should include community sensitivity training. Training recruits to handle
issues of special significance in particular communities can lead to a reduction
in community-police tensions.
The ACLU of Georgia, after a series of
incidents occurred in Atlanta involving police harassment of gays, helped
provide regular training at the local police academy to sensitize new recruits
on gay and lesbian concerns.
The
Police Practices Project of the ACLU of Northern California organized a group of
homeless people to create a video for use in sensitivity training at the San
Francisco police academy.
The ACLU of New Jersey, in response to
complaints that state police were harassing minority motorists and entrapping
gay men during an undercover operation in the men's room of a highway service
area, joined the NAACP and the Lesbian and Gay Coalition in initiating a series
of meetings with the new superintendent of the Division of State Police. The
meetings resulted in the introduction a two-week seminar on "Cultural Diversity
and Professionalism" that all 1,700 employees of the Division were required to
take within a year's time. Although it's too soon to evaluate the seminar's
impact on police conduct, the participating organizations believe that at the
very least it opened up lines of communication between the community and the
police.
Unfortunately, even the most enlightened
training programs can be undermined by veteran officers, who traditionally tell
recruits out in the field to "forget all that crap they taught you in the
academy."
In
San Francisco some years ago, men selected as field training officers (FTOs)
were found to have some of the worst complaint and litigation records in the
department. The evaluation scores they gave recruits revealed their systematic
attempts to weed out minority and women officers. They labeled women recruits
"bad drivers," gave Asians low scores in radio communication and unfairly
criticized African Americans for their report-writing. The Northern California
ACLU's Police Practices Project joined other community groups in successfully
pressuring the police department to adopt stricter selection criteria for FTOs
to ensure greater racial and gender integration, fairer evaluations of recruits
and higher quality training.
GOAL #7: EQUAL EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITY
Historically, police departments, like other
government agencies, have engaged in employment discrimination. People of color
have been grossly under represented, and women were not even accepted as
full-fledged officers until the 1970s.
Some progress has been made in the last 15 to
20 years. Police departments in several cities now have significant numbers of
officers who are people of color.
A
few departments even approach the theoretically ideal level of maintaining
forces that reflect the racial composition of the communities they serve. Most
departments now recruit and assign women on an equal basis with men.
Nonetheless, the overall employment levels of
women and minorities still lag far behind the ideal. In 1986, only 8.8 percent
of all sworn officers were women.
The San Francisco police force, even though it
has been operating under a court-approved consent decree for 12 years, is still
only 12 percent female and about 25 percent minority -- just a little more than
half the integration level the court required. These disparities are most
blatant at the highest ranks of virtually all police departments in the country.
Although a number of cities now have African American police chiefs, only two
big city departments have ever had female chiefs.
Improvements in police employment practices
have come about largely as the result of litigation under existing civil rights
laws. However, the courts may not be hospitable to employment discrimination
claims in the future. Therefore, community groups and civil rights organizations
should prepare to fight in the political arena for the integration of police
departments.
In
the short term, the recruitment of more women and minority officers may not
result in less police abuse. Several social science studies suggest that
minority and white officers do not differ greatly in their use of physical or
deadly force, or in their arrest practices. (Women officers, on the other hand,
are involved in citizen complaints at about half the rate of male officers,
according to the New York City CCRB.) Still, in the long term, an integrated
police force is a very important goal for these reasons:
(1)
Integration will break down the isolation of police departments, as they reflect
more and more the composition of the communities they serve. A representative
police force will probably be less likely to behave like an alien, occupying
army. The visible presence of officers of color in high-ranking command
positions engenders public confidence in the ability of police department
personnel to identify, on human terms, with community residents.
(2)
Integration sends the important message that the primary enforcement arm of "the
law" is, itself, committed to the principles of equal opportunity and equal
protection of the law.
(3)
Integration might, over time, reduce overtly racist/sexist enforcement tactics
and actions, including brutality.
GOAL #8: CERTIFICATION AND LICENSING OF POLICE
OFFICERS
Every state now has procedures for certifying
or licensing police officers that require all sworn officers to have some
minimum level of training. This was one of the advances of the late 1960s and
early 1970s.
An
important new development is the advent of procedures for decertifying officers.
Traditionally, a police officer could be fired from one department but then
hired by another. As a result, persons guilty of gross misconduct could continue
to work as police officers. Decertification bars a dismissed officer from
further police employment in that state (though not necessarily in some other
state). Between 1976 and 1983, the Florida Criminal Justice Standards and
Training Commission decertified 132 police officers.
GOAL #9: ACCREDITATION OF POLICE DEPARTMENTS
One result of the increasing number of lawsuits
brought against police departments by victims of abuse over the past 20 years
was a movement, within the police profession, for an accreditation process
similar to that in education and other fields whereby the police would establish
and enforce their own professional standards.
In
1979, the Commission on Accreditation for Law Enforcement Agencies (COALEA) was
established as a joint undertaking of several major professional associations.
COALEA published its first set of Standards for Law Enforcement Agencies in 1985
and issues new standards periodically.
In
deciding whether your community should press for accreditation of its local
police department, keep in mind these basic points.
(1)
Accreditation is a voluntary process. A police department suffers no penalty for
not being accredited. (In contrast, lack of accreditation in higher education
carries penalties that include an institution's ineligibility for student
financial aid programs and non-recognition of its awarded credits or degrees.)
(2)
Current accreditation standards are minimum, rather than optimum. They are very
good in some respects but do not go far enough in covering the critical uses of
law enforcement powers.
(3)
Accreditation might make a difference in the case of a truly backward,
unprofessional and poorly managed police department in that it could help
stimulate much needed and long overdue changes. On the other hand, a police
department can easily comply with all of the current standards and still
tolerate rampant brutality, spying and other abuses.
(4)
Citizens in your particular community must decide whether, taking all of the
above into account, accreditation would serve as an effective mobilization tool.
V.
ORGANIZING STRATEGIES
Once your community has identified its police
problems and decided what solutions to pursue, an organizing strategy for
securing the desired reform must be developed.
In
the 1960s and '70s, the most successful method of attacking police abuse was the
lawsuit. During the tenure of Chief Justice Earl Warren, landmark Supreme
Court decisions that imposed nationally uniform
limits on police behavior were handed down in the cases of Mapp v. Ohio,
Escobedo v. Illinois and Miranda v. Arizona. Respectively, those decisions
extended Fourth Amendment protection against unreasonable searches and seizures
to the states, established the Sixth
Amendment right to a lawyer during police
interrogations and required the police to inform persons taken into custody of
their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.
Today, the Supreme Court under Chief Justice
William H. Rehnquist is repeatedly demonstrating its hostility to individual
rights, as are many lower federal courts, the majority of whose presiding judges
were appointed by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George Bush. More and more,
therefore, the task of opposing police abuse falls not to lawyers, but to the
citizens in your community.
STRATEGY #1: BUILD COALITIONS
PROFILE: The Indianapolis Law Enforcement and
Community Relations Coalition.
The year is 1984. Galvanized by a series of
brutal and unjustified police killings that have sparked tensions between the
police department and the African American community, 19 civil rights,
religious, professional and civic organizations form the Indianapolis Law
Enforcement/Community Relations Coalition. Coalition members include the Urban
League, Baptist Ministerial Alliance, Community Centers of Indianapolis,
Hispano-American Center, Indiana Council of Churches, Jewish Community Relations
Council, Mental Health Association, NAACP and the United Methodist Church.
The
coalition, co-chaired by the directors of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union and
the Urban League of Greater Indianapolis, sets the establishment of a civilian
review board as its first priority. A board is established in 1989.
Currently, the coalition is seeking to
strengthen the board's authority and functions. Coalition members are calling
for removal of three police representatives so that the board will be completely
civilian and, thus, truly independent. Coalition members collaborate with police
academy instructors on sensitivity training, meeting with every class of
recruits before the recruits graduate and take on their first field assignments.
The recruits receive orientation around various policies and procedures that
impact on the community, such as the use of deadly force.
In
Indianapolis today, the Law Enforcement/Community Relations Coalition is
regarded by the police, the public and the media as the city's principal
civilian watchdog organization. Key to the coalition's success has been its
broad based character and commitment to participatory decision-making.
STRATEGY #2: MONITOR THE POLICE
PROFILE: COPWATCH, Berkeley, California
COPWATCH is a community organization whose stated purpose is "to reduce police
harassment and brutality," and "to uphold Berkeley's tradition of tolerance and
diversity." Its main activities are monitoring police conduct through personal
observation, recording and publicizing incidents of abuse and harassment, and
working with Berkeley's civilian review board -- the Police Review Commission.
COPWATCH sends teams of volunteers into the
community on three-hour shifts. Each team is equipped with a flashlight, tape
recorder, camera, "incident" forms (see sidebar) and COPWATCH Handbooks that
describe the organization's non-violent tactics, relevant laws, court decisions,
police policies and what citizens should do in an emergency. At the end of a
shift, the volunteers return their completed forms to the COPWATCH office. If
they have witnessed an harassment incident, they call one of the organization's
cooperating lawyers, who follows up on the incident. STRATEGY # 3: USE OPEN RECORDS LAWS
PROFILE: The Seattle Coalition on Government
Spying
The year is 1976. During confirmation hearings
for a new Seattle police chief, it comes to light that the city's police
department maintains political intelligence files on citizens who are not
suspected of any criminal activity.
Some time later, a local newspaper prints the
names of 150 individuals that were found in police files.
A
group of citizens, concerned about this clear violation of First Amendment and
privacy rights, form the Coalition on Government Spying.
One of the coalition's first acts is to file
suit under the Washington public disclosure law, seeking access to the police
department's intelligence files (see sample Open Records statute in sidebar).
Under the law, the police can refuse to disclose the files only if "non
disclosure is essential to effective law enforcement." Since the files are
purely political, the court orders full disclosure.
The coalition's charges of abuse turn out to be
well-founded. Not only do the files show that the police have engaged in
unconstitutional surveillance of political activists, but they are full of
inaccurate, misleading and damaging information.
The lawsuit and its revelations receive a lot
of media attention, which helps build strong public support for reform. The
result: Seattle enacts the first and only municipal ordinance in the country
that restricts police surveillance.
SIDEBAR: OPEN RECORDS LAWS
Each of the 50 states has a freedom of
information act or an open records law. Virtually all such laws were enacted
post-Watergate, in the mid-1970's. Under these laws, community groups can
request and obtain access to police reports, investigations, policies and tape
recordings regarding a controversial incident, such as a beating, shooting, or
false arrest. If the police refuse to disclose information to representatives of
your community, that refusal in itself should become the focus of organizing and
public attention. Ultimately, your community can sue to compel disclosure,
unless the records you seek are specifically exempted.
FLORIDA FREEDOM OF INFORMATION ACT
General state policy on public records.
It
is the policy of this state that all state, county, and municipal records shall
at all times be open for a personal inspection by any person.
Definitions.
(1)
"Public records" means all documents, papers, letters, maps, books, tapes,
photographs, films, sound recordings, or other material, regardless of physical
form or other characteristics, made or received pursuant to law or ordinance or
in connection with the transaction of official business by any agency.
(2)
"Agency" shall mean any state, county, district, authority or municipal officer,
department, division, board, bureau, commission, or other separate unit of
government...
Inspection and examination of records;
exemptions.
(1)
Every person who has custody of public records shall permit the records to be
inspected and examined by any person desiring to do so, at reasonable times,
under reasonable conditions...The custodian shall furnish copies or certified
copies of the records upon payment of fees...
(2)
All public records which presently are provided by law to be confidential or
which are prohibited from being inspected by the public, whether by general or
special law, shall be exempt from the provisions of subsection (1).
STRATEGY #4: EDUCATE THE PUBLIC
PROFILE: Police Practices Project, ACLU of
Northern California The Police Practices Project conducts education programs to
teach citizens about their constitutional rights. One aspect of the police abuse
problem, the project believes, is that the police tend to abuse certain people
partly because they think these individuals don't know their rights, or don't
know how to assert their rights. The project also believes that its programs
have the added advantage of recruiting groups and individuals to work in police
reform campaigns.
The project also publishes wallet-size cards in
English, Spanish and Chinese that inform citizens about what to do or say in
encounters with the police. These cards have been widely distributed in the
community. (One card-holder reported that he pulled out his card when confronted
by a police officer, only to have the officer reach into his wallet and pull out
his own copy of the same card!)
The project believes that individual citizens
and community groups become informed about police policies just by participating
in the preparation of educational materials and training sessions. That
participation also fosters awareness about particular areas of police practice
that need reform. Most important, education empowers even the most
disenfranchised people and helps deter the police from treating them abusively.

If
Your Are Stopped in Your Car

Show your driver's license and registration
upon request. Your can in certain cases be searched without a warrant so long as
the police have probable cause.
To
protect yourself later, you should make it clear that you do not consent to a
search.
If
you are given a ticket, you should sign it, otherwise you can be arrested. You
can always fight the case in court later.
If
you are suspected of drunken driving and refuse a blood, urine or breath test,
your driving license can be suspended.
If
You Are Arrested or Taken to a Police Station You have the right to remain
silent and talk to a lawyer before you talk to the police. Tell the police
nothing except your name and address. Do not give explanations, excuses or
stories. You can make your defense in court based on what you and your lawyer
decide is best.
Ask
to see a lawyer immediately. If you cannot pay for a lawyer, you have a right to
a free one, and you should ask the police how the lawyer can be contacted. Do
not talk without a lawyer.
STRATEGY # 5: USE THE POLITICAL PROCESS TO WIN
REFORMS
PROFILE: The New York Civil Liberties Union's
Campaign for a "Real Civilian Review Board"
The time is August 1988; the place, New York
City. Manhattan's Lower East Side neighborhood is rocked by one of the most
serious outbreaks of police violence in years. The violence occurs as the
police, declaring a curfew, begin to eject homeless people and their supporters
from Tompkins Square Park. Fifty-two people, most of them innocent bystanders,
sustain serious injuries at the hands of the police. Much of the violence is
recorded on video. Yet the officers who are guilty of misconduct go virtually
unpunished; only one receives more than a 30-day suspension from the force.
The city's Civilian Complaint Review Board
(CCRB) comes under heightened scrutiny. Although it has existed since 1966, the
CCRB has long been criticized for its lack of independence and secretive
proceedings. Half of its 12 members are appointed by the mayor, the other half
by the police commissioner. Most of the CCRB's investigators are police
officers.
During 1991, the campaign calls on the city's
community boards to pass resolutions in support of "a real CCRB." (The community
boards are elected bodies that have advisory jurisdiction over a variety of
local matters, such as zoning and land use). Campaign spokespersons debate
police department representatives before some 30 community boards throughout the
city, and 19 boards pass resolutions calling for revisions of the present system
(see sample resolution in sidebar). Each board that passes a resolution becomes
a member of the campaign coalition. Coalition members set up tables at street
fairs and other community events to collect signatures on petitions for "a real
CCRB."
More than 1,000 signatures are collected. The
NYCLU, after garnering this broad support develops legislation for submission to
the City Council. The bill is endorsed by 14 Council members. At this writing,
the bill has yet to be debated, but the cause of true civilian review in New
York City has already been advanced.